Battlestar Galactica writer goes back to the future

Karl Quinn

AMERICAN TV writer Jane Espenson was in Australia recently to teach the local creatives how to write genre television - specifically science fiction but more broadly anything created with a strong and unapologetic sense of its audience in mind.

At least, that's what Film Victoria, which paid her way, thought it was getting. But as she took to the stage, Espenson - whose credits include sci-fi epic Battlestar Galactica, its prequel Caprica(now on 7Two) and, soon, the Dr Who spinoff Torchwood - told the would-be writers in the room to ignore all notions of the marketplace. ''Don't write for an audience,'' she said. ''Write what you want to see.''

When you meet sci-fi fans, they're fully functional, lovely people but they do tend to be frustrated by the pettiness in our world and are in love with infinite diversity.

Whoops.

Caprica is set 58 years before the events of Battlestar Galactica.

Espenson also had another, less contentious, bit of advice: watch what you want to write. ''Work backwards,'' she said. ''If there's a TV show you really like, watch your favourite episode and re-create the outline. Now you'll know what a good outline looks like. That's how I taught myself.''

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Espenson wrote about a dozen spec scripts following the working-backwards principle before she landed her first paying job. She tried her hand at Seinfeld, Roseanne, Frasier and Cheers before finally getting an in on Star Trek. From there she landed a traineeship with Disney, which led to a staff writing job on Dinosaurs (the Jim Henson prehistoric Muppet sitcom) and, eventually, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Battlestar Galactica. She has just finished a stint as the show runner (the head writer-producer who manages a show) on Caprica and is about to write three episodes of Torchwood.

Espenson clearly knows her sci-fi and fantasy, both as a creator and fan, and when she talks about writing for herself, she might as well be talking about writing for an audience. She respects them; she's one of them (gabba gabba hey).

Eric Stolz plays Daniel Graystone in Caprica. Photo: Syfy

''I've heard people say sci-fi nerds are people who don't fit in here, so they're looking for a different world where they would fit in. I don't buy that,'' she says.

''When you meet sci-fi fans, they're fully functional, lovely people but they do tend to be frustrated by the pettiness in our world and are in love with infinite diversity. They're broad-minded, broad-seeking people.

''Sci-fi fans are very special and demanding. If you can create a world that is real enough to satisfy their quest for something that is real and is not here, you've really hooked into something.''

Certainly, no one could accuse Caprica of not giving that a red-hot go. Set 58 years before the events of Battlestar Galactica, the series explores life on the 12 colonies from which Battlestar's 50,000 human refugees will later emerge. The planet Caprica is the focal point but what goes on in the outlying colonies matters, too, if only as utterly plausible background noise.

''We made a great effort to make the worlds you're watching feel as real as our world,'' Espenson says. ''I had a writer called Bob Harris write a big, long document for us, where he went through all of the colonies other than Caprica … and came up with personalities, languages, cultural backgrounds, capital cities and all that kind of stuff so they felt real and grounded and inhabited, so when our characters would talk about them, if they made a joke where the punch line is, 'Well, he's from Aerilon', we knew what sort of joke it would be.''

Many American shows have ''show bibles'', a kind of form guide that details all the background that informs characters and storylines, but this was just one of Caprica's. ''We had a number of them,'' Espenson says. ''This was just the one that told us what all the other planets were about.''

It's that level of detail, she says, that gives this kind of genre film and television its richness.

''When people say they don't like sci-fi or fantasy, I say, 'Oh, so you didn't like The Wizard of Oz, Blade Runner, Big, Back to the Future, It's a Wonderful Life'? So many beloved movies and shows, when you think about it, have some aspect of alternative reality. People don't realise how much of what they love is this genre.''

Caprica airs Thursday at 9.30pm on 7mate.

23 comments so far

Why do be people resign the world to what it is and write about what it should be?

Rather than choosing escapism with faith and hard work we could all "make it so".

Commenter

Nicolas

Date and time

October 21, 2010, 7:07AM

Now that's a bloody grouse article. Next to some of Jane Sullivan's insights into writing, this is why I read The Age.

I was impressed with all of Espenson's credits, 'cept perhaps, Dinosaurs which was pure crap. Caprica scores an 8 out of 10 in my book and the only things that better it at the moment are The IT Crowd and Fringe... The Genius of Design sadly just finished. Now that was sooo cool as well.

Caprica It might seem out there but the whole story of children killed in a religious fundamentalist terrorist bombing and then a grieving parent turning to digital records to recreate his lost child in the virtual world is UNUSUAL --that's why it's fresh-- and yet, the story serves, in a way, as a warning to society about the virtual.

Caprica, to me, is basically reworking Mary Shelley's classic to set the scene for the dystopia of Galactica but, Caprica is also timely in 2010 in that we are increasingly chasing the virtual while neglecting reality.

## Mirror images reflecting mirror images is what made the Matrix so interesting.

Commenter

Alex

Location

Finley NSW

Date and time

October 21, 2010, 7:49AM

Nicolas - I hope by faith, you don't mean it in the relgious sense for surely nothing has ever wrought more misery in the world than religion. Science fiction also drives development. Many things written about in SciFi have come to pass in one form or another.

Commenter

Mike

Location

Sydney

Date and time

October 21, 2010, 7:55AM

@Nicholas)

DATA ! . . . .Is that really you ??

Commenter

MikeyP

Location

Sydney

Date and time

October 21, 2010, 8:06AM

Nicolas - it's tv dude. Chill out.

Commenter

DPF

Location

Briese-bane

Date and time

October 21, 2010, 8:12AM

She was one of the worst writers on Battlestar, her episodes and 'The Plan' were woeful, but Caprica seems to be ok so far despite her 'talents'.

Commenter

Biff

Location

Sydney

Date and time

October 21, 2010, 8:22AM

@Nicolas why do some people that don't have an interest in something try and shove their beliefs down others throats? If you don't have an interest in Sci-Fi/Fantasy so be it but please don't bring..of all things.."faith" into it.

Commenter

What?

Date and time

October 21, 2010, 8:26AM

"'Don't write for an audience,'' she said. ''Write what you want to see.''

Short answer? Sci-Fi writers take it upon themselves to reimagine the world. They use their skill to write the world the way they think it should be, in the hope that their writings will influence future leaders and actually have a part in forming the future. That's been the history of Sci-Fi, and it's what the majority of Sci-Fi writers aspire to.

Personally, I'm writing about a world where Australian TV networks aren't afraid to produce a local Sci-Fi series.

Commenter

Steve

Date and time

October 21, 2010, 8:45AM

I would not be so quick to criticise Australian TV networks for not wanting to commission sci-fi. If you look at the USA, the biggest and most diverse TV market in the world, there is very little example of mainstream networks commissioning sci-fi. All of the main US series like Battlestar, Caprica, Stargate - really all of them except Star Trek are on targeted sci-fi cable/pay tv channels. The reality is that for better or worse, sci-fi is niche and as much as I love it, that does not mean other people do (I think they should, but people don't seem to listen). The other major producer of sci-fi is the BBC in the UK, but they are not driven purely by ratings.